PROJECT 1 033 KEY SUPPLIERS
Showcase manufacture Florea
d.sign
florea.de
Bespoke paint colours Developed with Little Greene
littlegreene.com
Clockwise from top left From blue to pink with unique colour palletes tailored to each room, a display table angled for ease of sight, Portrait of Margaret Gainsborough on a
freestanding furniture display
Below Patinated label holder with Canson art paper label
integral role in realising the bold new vision for this room, developing freestanding divisions and opening the room up after years of being partitioned into smaller, more cellular spaces. The space was another major challenge for the practice: how to enable more works to be shown here, without compromising the overall space? Nissen explains to me that over the years the Great Room had been filled with smaller structures to create more wall space and break down the much larger void. However, as part of the base-build strategy, The Courtauld wanted to re-open this beautiful and dramatic space.
‘We spent some time thinking about different options of how we could put in walls within this space, that were somehow less present in the overall space,’ she says. ‘In the end we tested this in several different ways – both through computer modelling options, and then building large 1:25 models with scale versions of interventions. Finally, we created 1:1 mock-ups in the space with Factory Settings, a theatre contractor, using large-scale scaffolding and surfaces. The final design uses individual walls supported from the base, plus pop-out walls that give the illusion of implied rooms within the larger space, allowing for both intimacy and larger moments’. The new configuration takes the form of a series of continuing spaces, which control flow
and allow for a more intimate experience of the artworks, while retaining the experience for visitors of a single volume. Four new walls create a dynamic final setting within a layout that breaks up the conventional gallery perimeter wall hang and is completely visible from the point of arrival. This ensures a sense of discovery for visitors, allowing the collection to be viewed in defined groupings, each with equal prominence.
‘The programme meant that our most intense period was through the pandemic. The main work with the showcase manufacturer was in this time,’ recalls Nissen. ‘The showcases were incredibly complex – and we wanted them to appear as invisible as possible. We wanted to use the same palette as the
wayfinding and interpretation and furniture, but also be able to hit conservation grade cases – which is no mean feat!’
By switching to Zoom and Teams, Nissen Richards Studio worked with Florea
d.sign in Romania via remote meetings – which were slow – going over prototypes in the workshop. The practice also continued to work with samples by sending them out to people in their different locations, including the curators, in order to continue meetings online and sign off finishes. While this process was inevitably longer, it nevertheless crucially kept the project moving. ‘So, even with the huge hurdle of the lockdown and working from home, we created the showcase details, and I believe that they are unique and really beautiful, and not compromised at all from this working process’, adds Nissen.
‘Working closely with the project team and curators, we have created an engaging environment with elegant displays, enhanced within the historic setting. Everything supports the Gallery’s ethos of enabling unhurried and personal enjoyment of great masterpieces within a distinctive environment, while encouraging the public to foster deep encounters with the breadth of the collection and the history of Somerset House. We very much look forward to seeing visitors enjoy the galleries and the artworks for themselves.’
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